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Almost Two!

Time continues to fly by and it seems like the Abu and Meaza are growing and changing every week.  They will turn 2 on Thanksgiving Day and we are already seeing some toddler temper tantrums.  However, generally they are very happy and amusing.  Abu is our talker and is saying new words every day while Meaza more carefully chooses the words she wants to say.  We thought life changed when they started walking but they continue to throw us new challenges.  Lately they have started climbing like mountain goats and just yesterday Meaza decided that she was ready to move on from just straddling her crib railing to pushing herself off to the floor.  She's tough and was only slightly fazed by the big fall.  And speaking of challenges, when we put one in a "timeout", the other thinks he/she is missing out on something and wants to be in the same timeout space which then leads to a fight.  Clearly we need to work on this….  As of the end of September, I am back to staying home full-time with them.  It's been an adjustment figuring out how to keep them busy and entertained but this is a good thing and overall we're doing great.  Here are a few recent pictures to include one after their first venture at trick-or-treating in their sea otter costumes. 

 

We hope everyone is doing well!

 

Elizabeth & John

 

First day of kindergarten! Deg is excited. After 12 years of kids at home, I AM TOO! It makes it easy when you know that the kids are really excited about heading to school.

Here's Denby

I can't believe it's been more than a year. Like all things kid-related, time both flies and crawls. But when I look back over the year and all the things Denbele has learned and done, it blows my mind. She is now a walking-talking (potty trained!) social butterfly. She even has a nickname—Denby—so she could pronounce her own name. Denbele was too much of a mouthful for her. When I see the picture of Meaza with her bountiful curls, I can help but see a resemblance.

Denbele starts preschool in the fall. She loves to swim, run, climb and eat. She is the rock star of our playground—she often has an entourage of older kids or moms following her around. It's hilarious. Of course, she only has eyes for Willa. Most of the time.

And yesterday we got our court date for Denbele's re-adoption! Hooray! I don't know about other states but here in New York, we like to make things difficult so readoption is a process as laborious and bureaucratic as doing your homestudy or dossier and you cannot do it until your child has been home six months but if you wait longer than a year you have to re-do the homestud. The state treats a re-adoption as a new petition for adoption so you have to assemble all this paperwork (and get fingerprinted again) as though you don't already have the child. Which is nonsensical. But now we go see the judge! And then she will get her US birth certificate!

That's all the news from here. A sweltering summer and we are making good use of the public pools and beaches.

We love hearing from you and are so excited about Genet.

Here are some pics. The girls doing ballet together and Denbele eating cake from her "anniversary" party.

XX

Gayle, Nick, Willa and Denby

on our way back to ethiopia.

just got word that they are going to squeeze us in before the courts close in two weeks. we fly out this thursday/friday (we are still trying to arrange flights). we will be blogging the trip on our family site. please check it out to see what's going on www {dot} thyen-nies {dot} com.

--jason

Okay, so maybe i don't know how to attach the social report photo either!  Hopefully this try will work :)
 

Our summer has been fun but a little frustrating because I returned to work in early May for what was going to be a month but now has extended well beyond 2 months.  Hopefully if the government can sort out the paperwork soon, I will be officially retired before the end of August and able to stay home with the kids for at least the next few years.  We found a great sitter who is home for a couple months between graduating from college and moving to Honduras to volunteer in an orphanage for 2 years.  The kids are having lots of fun with her and with the exception of Abu's separation drama when we leave (okay really when Dad leaves) for work in the morning, it's going well.   Abu and Meaza seem to get busier and more creative every day.  Just when we think we are a step ahead of them, they can reach another shelf, climb another piece of furniture or come up with some other activity to keep us on our toes.  They are a happy pair and we have decided that their laughter is one of the wonderful sounds ever! 

We loved seeing the Nies, Laughlin's and Holloman's in April and would love to get together with a bigger group in Ohio or wherever works best!   We also love all your updates/picture and for Kim, Jason, Mac, TJ and Mitiku, we are so happy to hear about Genet!   

I couldn't figure out how to post Abu & Meaza's referral photos but here is one from their social report when they were about 4 months old and then one from earlier this month at 19 months old.

Elizabeth & John

 


 

 

happy one year anniversary

hard to believe that a year has passed since we were all together in ethiopia. we miss all of you and hope the past year was as great for all of you as it was for us. here is mitiku's referral picture along with a picture that was taken today.

I can't believe it has been a year already. It's been great for us to see your pictures - we wish we lived closer! Would anyone be interested in meeting in Ohio sometime (or whatever the midpoint would be)? (:

The first pic is Yonas' referral picture. He's growing up fast and welcoming home new friends. Tripp is pictured and lives a block away. He came home from Ethiopia a few months ago.

The other pics are from our vacation in Kentucky last week. We have horse lovers...

Hope everyone is well!

Ross, Erin, Ellie, Josie, Maggie, Miles, and Yonas

our family grows...again

our family grows…again. God has picked an amazing little 5 1/2 year old girl, Genet, to join our family! we signed and submitted paperwork this week to begin the journey to Ethiopia – hopefully before the end of the year (two trips to Ethiopia this time) God has truly blessed our lives…again! [jason, kim, mac, tj and mitiku]

Deg graduates preschool

I know that posts without pictures aren't nearly as exciting as ones with, but if i wait for a picture, it won't get done. Deg graduates preschool this Thursday. It is hard to believe the difference in his ability to communicate back in September on our drives to and from compared to now.

He has made some good friends while in preschool. He went from being the little boy that most of the girls were a bit unsure of to the one they all want hugs from before leaving. The boys are his good buddies as well.

His teachers put together an end-of-the-year book for all of the kids. It was to show the progress made during the year. What was remarkable is that he has grown 3.5 inches and gained 7 pounds in 9 months. Amazing, isn't it? I think that he will be passing his siblings in height much sooner than any of them would want. He gulps down milk and then flexes his arms to show me his muscles (and they are really there). We've convinced him that milk makes them grow. He has gone from not liking it to saying "i love milk momma".

He'll be charming his Kindergarten teachers this fall. Will definitely be posting him getting on the yellow school bus. A big milestone in all of our lives. I'll be the one in the background dancing my way home ... at least the first day. I'm sure I'll miss having a buddy at home as the year goes on.

Loved having a chance for some of us to get together in DC. It was like having family visit :)

last day in dc

we had a great time in dc, lots of great sites to see and of course the opportunity to see the dc area families. its hard to believe how just one week together in ethiopia created such a tight bound between all of our families. it was very hard to say goodbye again (i wished we all lived closer to each other).

for our last day we meet up with john, elizabeth, abu and meaza at the ethiopian embassy. the embassy was open as part of passport dc. we spent a couple hours watching a coffee ceremony, eating traditional foods, chasing after the twins (they are fast!) and visiting.

here are a couple more pictures (i will stop hogging the site...now its time for everyone else to post some new pictures :-)

last night in vienna.

our last night in vienna and we were able to see the laughlin gang one more time. this time we meet at a ethiopian restaurant and enjoyed some great food together. tomorrow morning we are headed back to dc where we will meet up with john and elizabeth and the twins for a coffee ceremony at the ethiopian embassy. after that we are on our way back to mn. it has been so great to see everyone!

i tried to get one group picture of all of the kids...this was a little harder than i thought :-)

get together II (laughlin home)

tonight the laughlin's hosted our second get together. fun was had by all. here are few pictures from the night.